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CoffeeGeek

March 15, 2024

the coffee pulse newsletter

Issue 015

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Brought to you by Baratza
New CoffeeGeek Site

Fresh Designs and Coffee Rediscoveries

Happy Friday, Mark!


I have found myself almost constantly thanking the stars over the past few months for blessing us all with the gift of coffee.


Because good coffee fueled my tiny team and I since late December, when we embarked on an ambitious project: to (once again) completely overhaul the CoffeeGeek website. We got it done, and on March 4, we launched the newest version of this 23 year old information, opinion, education and (yes) community website dedicated to specialty coffee. This is also the reason why there hasn’t been a Coffee Pulse Newsletter for over 2 months: all our time and energy was focused on this project.


I’d love for you to visit right now. No matter the device you’re reading this on. Everything is all new, and it is entirely designed to load fast and look excellent, no matter the web device you’re using.


We knew we had issues with the 2021 redesign of CoffeeGeek. It was too slow for many. It was responsive on various devices, but with a lot of cracks in the seams. Worst of all, our site wasn’t nearly as accessible as it should have been for the visually impaired and others with viewing concerns.


Behind the scenes, another problem: we did not have the infrastructure in place to relaunch our community oriented features, those of which made CoffeeGeek what it was for nearly 20 years prior.


All of that has been corrected. The website is blazing fast. Our accessibility rating on most pages is above 90 points. The entire site design is fluid, dynamic, and elastic, displaying nicely on just about every device out there, from your smartphone, Alexa and Google Nest display device, tablets, and right up to ultra wide screen, 5600 pixel wide displays. All of this is written up in a feature article published on March 4th if you’re curious about the details.


Later this year, our next big project begins: bringing back the coffee community features. I’ll have a lot more on that soon. For now, let’s get to the rest of this newsletter!

this newsletter is brought to you exclusively by Baratza

Rediscovering Great Coffee Content

One of the benefits of this redesign is I got to rediscover some excellent content we’ve published on CoffeeGeek, a lot of it before the Coffee Pulse Newsletter started up. Almost all of it got a multi-tiered refresh: the articles were edited, new photos and videos were shot, and they were given a nice shiny coat of web paint. 


Take, for instance, our How To on Balance Brewers. We go deep into what is effectively the world’s first automatic coffee maker, invented in 1844, and still easily found for sale today. They work a lot like siphon coffee makers, but side by side instead of up and down. They can be seen as a bit of a novelty act in the brewing world, but are still very much worthy of your interest.


The Japanese Iced Coffee Method, which we first covered back in 2017 also got a make over and some updated visuals. If you are into cold brew, outside of iced espresso, I happen to think this is the best method you can use, considering the ease of the method, the relatively short time it takes, and the results in the cup. We use this method in our home a lot for other coffee builds as well, including our own home made nitro-injected coffee drinks.


A personal favourite of mine is the Irish Coffee How To. A very different version of this first appeared on CoffeeGeek in 2007. I worked with a bartender friend to refine it and reshoot it, and that variant went online in 2011. Around that time I was also training some of Vancouver’s top bartenders in the art of fine coffee, and with one of them, the “Devil in Molly Malone” variant of the Irish Coffee drink was born. For whatever reason, that content didn’t make it over to the 2021 version of CoffeeGeek, which was one of many mistakes we made for that overhaul. For 2024, that’s been corrected, and this historically rich, visual walk through on the traditional Irish Coffee, and the added bonus signature drink, “Devil in Molly Malone” are now back on our website.


Last thing I’d like to cover in this issue is two new content categories we introduced for 2024: Snapshot Reviews, and the Feature Guides section. 


Snapshot Reviews replace our blog’s “mini reviews”. They come with full scores, a lot more information on the products, and are set up to allow us to build listing categories for all the products we review, letting you find products and their scores and rankings quickly. They are designed to get products reviewed fast, but with our usual attention to details. Our most recent is the Hario Mugen Dripper Review.


Feature Guides is something I’ve wanted on CoffeeGeek for four years now. They’re going to encompass a wide range of very rich, long form content. From buying guides, to best-of guides. From masterclasses on solitary coffee brewing topics, to in depth examinations of things like plant based “milks”, coffee variatal types, and more. Our first three Feature Guides are now online, with the most recent being published just this morning: Best Budget Espresso Machines for 2024, Ten Types of Coffee Makers, and today’s addition, 25 Coffee Drinks to Try Before You Die.


If these seem a bit “click-bait” like, that’s on purpose. Not to gain us SEO driven clicks. But to provide you with real, researched content based on real world experience. Far too much AI-driven drivel is out there topping out on search engine searches because these are terms people tend to search for a lot. We wanted to be the island of quality content out there in a sea of AI-written click bait that serves no one any good other than the publisher of that content. 


Every one of our Feature Guides will be written by experienced coffee lovers, with the purpose of providing you with honest and worthy content that helps you understand coffee better, make better purchase decisions, and hopefully avoid some mistakes people make when buying and using coffee and espresso equipment. That’s a pledge and a promise.


I’m looking forward to connecting with you next week as we get back to our regular newsletter schedule. Till then, I hope you’re enjoying some fantastic coffee!

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this newsletter is brought to you exclusively by Baratza

New Content up at CoffeeGeek

10 things to look for

Top 10 Things to Consider in a Home Espresso Machine

by Mark Prince

Our best ten tips on your important espresso machine purchase, designed to arm you like an expert and make a smart purchase.

Six Mistakes Made

Six Mistakes People Make with Their Espresso Machines

by Natia Simmons

Here's six ways you might be messing up your home espresso, and how you can immediately improve them for a fantastic result.

Cascara

That's a Coffee Cherry, not a Cranberry!

by Robyn Huntf

An introduction to Cascara, a recent innovation on an age old drink made from the cherry husks of the coffee plant.

Hario Mugen

Hario Mugen Dripper Review

by Mark Prince

Hario's newest drip brewer, the Mugen, promises great coffee with very little barista techniques. Does it deliver? Let's find out.

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